“Oh, Drew.” He waved her off, his heart
broken because of that woman. “I’m so sorry. So terribly sorry for everything.”
~~~
Craig sat across from Andi. He had waited a
good long time after the younger man left, but here she still sat, holding onto
the envelope he’d given her…well shoved at her would be a better description,
but here she sat all the same. He touched his fingers gently to her hand and
she looked at him, dazed.
“He said that he didn’t want it.” Craig
nodded, knowing that whatever had the boy coming in here to talk to Andi about
had been hard on him. “He said to use it how we saw fit. That he knew we were working
on a shelter for vets and the homeless, and that he thought we could use it to
make a difference. He wanted it to make a difference in someone’s life as it
never had his.”
“I’m a guessing that it’s money he gave you.”
She nodded and pushed the thick envelope to him, and he pushed it right back. “You
thinking of not taking it because of what his momma did to you? Or did he say
something that makes you think she’s coming back for it? She ain’t, I can tell
you that.”
“No. That’s not it, but there is…have you any
idea how much money he gave to us?” Craig had an idea it was a lot, but said
nothing. “There is over seventy grand in cash there, as well as ten checks made
out to me for two hundred and fifty grand each. He said that it was all tax
free, the cash. That’s well over two million dollars that he said he didn’t
want.”
“Two million, five hundred seventy thousand.”
She glared at him. “Well, I was making sure you know how much you’re dealing
with, darling. But I’m sure if he hadn’t wanted you to have it, he wouldn’t
have turned it over to you.”
“It’s a lot of money for someone to say they
don’t want. I mean, I understand it, but I don’t like it.” He nodded, then
shook his head at her. “You think I should take it?”
“Yes…yes, ma’am, I do. You can do a powerful
lot of good with that much money. More’n them people up there in them offices
have ever done for any of us vets, or the homeless for that matter. That new
shelter you’re putting in? You can sure fill it with a lot of nice things for
us old men and women to use. Beds with nice mattresses on them. Sheets that
don’t have no holes in them. Yes, ma’am, you sure can make a big difference in
a lot of sad, lonely lives with that much cash.” He nodded to the envelope. “Cash
money to give out when there ain’t no money for meds. A couple of bucks to tide
one over in the event that the check is late. Doctors ain’t cheap. You can help
a person out to get to one that they might not have afforded before.”
She fingered the money, and he knew that she
was thinking of whatever that boy had told her…broke her heart, whatever it had
been. Craig knew that he’d be a sorry man if Andi’s husband was there now, but
then again, maybe not. That Mac, he was a good man, just like his daddy.
“He said to not name it for his mother. He
told me that she no more deserved that than she did to have him and Lizzy as
her children. He’d come to take it back if I did that.” Craig had known Martha
and the person that she was. Most hadn’t, or if they did, they never said
anything to her. She was a mean old cuss, and had been as a kid too. “You think
that she’d be rolling over in her grave, knowing that the money she hoarded for
years is going to help a lot of people out that she wouldn’t before? If for no
other reason than that, I’m thinking of using the money as you said—to help
people out when they need it the most.”
“I’m thinking that old Martha got just what
she deserved and if that boy was my son, I’d be right proud to call him my
own.” Craig pointed to the money again. “He could have done left that money in
the house when they tore it down. Not caring a fig for whoever might have dug
them a basement someday and found it. But he thought of you, and what you might
do with it. I heard him saying to you that he’d been checking you out. He knew
just what he was doing in coming here and leaving that to you. Formed a trust in
you that many don’t get told to them.”
“There might be more, he told me.” Craig
tried to think how on earth that woman had hidden away so much money, but said
nothing to Andi. She was hurting enough right now. “He’s taking some of it home
to his sister. He’s sure that I’ll be getting that too. Neither of them wanted
anything to do with their mother after they left here. He said that Lizzy has
been going to see a shrink since she was a little girl, and that while it
helped them both, neither of them have had children, nor have they dated all
that much. I can’t imagine doing something so…beyond cruel to your own son and
daughter. Can you?”
“No, I rightly can’t. But then, I was raised
in a loving home, with my parents scraping every penny together to make our
lives better. But I knew Drew’s daddy, the one that gave them two a name, that
is. A good man he was.” Andi looked at him then, her mind leaving the money and
it’s meaning behind for a minute. “Married old Martha when she was big with
somebody else’s babe…that little girl, it turned out. Little Drew, he was
already borned by then; his daddy had died before he’d been brought in this
here world, and Martha had…well, she wasn’t a nice person, so we all wondered
at how somebody got to…you know. But Barker wanted her to have a good name, he
told me, but there was no helping her with her disposition, I guess. Martha was
born a nasty woman, and she died as one. Old Barker, he passed some years back,
a happy man for leaving her behind.”
“Did he have another family? Maybe they’d
want this money.” He told her that he’d become something of an honorary uncle
for children at the hospital where he lived, giving them small gifts and
trinkets when he visited. “So he really was a good man. Maybe we could name the
building for him.”
“Nah, he’d not like that anymore than the
kids wanted that money. You name it for what it is, girl: a shelter.” She
looked at the money, then at him again. “You thinking that you can’t take it
still? I suppose you can just put it in your house, let the dust fall over it
again for another fifty or so years. Or you can hoard it; seems money tainted
with her touch might as well go on not being used.”
“You’re very slick, aren’t you, Mr. Craig?”
He asked her what she meant, quite proud, actually, that she’d seen through
him. “Comparing me to Martha in this. I’m not going to let it get dusty again.
I’m going to use if for good, not evil. But you owe me.”
“Me? I didn’t do a damned thing that you’d
think I owe you.” Then she told him what it was going to be. “Oh. I can see you
wanting me to run the shelter. But I’m an old man…won’t be around for that much
longer, you know. I’ll do what I can, but you should maybe find you a younger
man, one that’ll be around for another few years after I been able to teach him
all that I know.” He laughed with her, and he knew that whatever demons had
been in her head and heart were gone. For now, anyways. Craig loved this woman
like she was his own child.
She got up then, putting the heavy envelope
in her apron pocket. Then she leaned over him, taking off his ball cap, and
kissed him right on the head. Damned if he didn’t feel it right to his toes
when she did that. Looking up at her, Craig asked her why she’d done a fool
thing like that.
“Because, Mr. Craig, I love you.” And with
that she moved away, and he sat there dumbfounded for ten minutes. When he
stood up, Craig felt like he’d been given a new lease on life. Damned if it
didn’t feel right good having someone kissing him on the head for being an old
man.
“I’d like for you to think about this for a
few days. A week at the very least before you feel you have to give me an
answer.” Aedan nodded, his heart feeling like someone had put electrodes to it.
“Aedan? You can tell me no…you know that, don’t you?”
“I doubt very much that you’d let me.” The
president, Harold he’d been asked to call him, only nodded and leaned back in
his chair. Here he was, in the personal home of one of the most powerful men in
the world, and they were both having a glass of wine and eating pizza like he
was one of his old buddies from college. “Why me, if you don’t mind me asking? I
mean, there are a great many people out there that can do a better job simply
because they have more experience.”
“True. There are. But none of them have the
heart that you do.” The cigar, not lit but still chewed upon, hung from the
other man’s mouth as he continued. “Do you have any idea what sort of work you
can do as the governor of your own state? What sort of jobs you can create just
by your name alone?”
“There are several businesses that I can name
that would come there, with the right incentive.” Harold smiled at him but said
nothing. “You’re banking on my name then, not me.”
“No. Some of it, but not all. You’re a good
man, raised by good people, and it does help that your last name is Harrison. And
of course that your sister-in-law is none other than Storm Browning. But that’s
not all of it.” Aedan started to ask him what else when he stood up and moved
to the table on the other side of the room. When he returned with a thick file
with his name on it, Aedan just held it. “You should see the things that we
know about you.”
Instead of opening it, like his fingers
burned to do, he tossed it on the desk. “I know what sort of man I am. I worked
hard to get me there. Of course my mother would tell you it was all her doing,
and my dad would tell you that I took after him. Which, by the way, are both
true.”
“See? A humble man even in the face of all
this.” Aedan leaned back too, thinking that he’d only come here today to get
some paperwork for Storm. She’d set him up, he just knew it. He asked him about
it. “Yes. Stormy knows what I’m about. In fact, she told me you’d turn me down
flat, something about making your own way by moving up slowly through the
ranks.”
“And she would be correct.” Aedan sat there,
thinking of all the things he’d planned out for his life. One step at a time,
taking his time learning the job before moving on. “I was going to run for
governor first, and then maybe taking a second term before branching out for
the next level of running for your job before I found me a mate and settled
down.”
“You can have it. And to be honest with you,
Aedan, I have hopes of you sitting right here one day soon. But taking on the
governorship now is a step in the right direction.” Aedan told him he was
joking. “I’m not. A Harrison here, in the White House? Perfect. I’ll vote for
you.”
“I’m not ready for that.” Harold nodded and
continued to chew on his cigar. “I have a feeling that I’m going to be taking
the governorship job and doing more work for you in the meantime.”
“Yes.” Harold laughed as he turned and looked
at him. “When I tell your mother, and I will if you don’t, what do you think
she’s going to do?”
“Figure out a way to get in here and try to
redecorate your offices. Then see about finding me a mate so I can have her
grandchild in the White House. There has already been a wedding here. A
grandbaby would make her day. Hell, her life.” Harold laughed. “I’m not going
to find a mate until I have my own life settled. I have things I want to do,
and having a wife to care for is not part of that plan. Not yet.”
“You think a wife is a burden to you?” He
told him no, but she would require him to change his plans. “Why? I mean, Storm
didn’t require your brother to do any such thing.”
“No, she didn’t
require
it, but he’s
different. Sappy, if you want to know the truth. I don’t want to appear to be
led around by my balls, thanks.” Harold laughed. “I love women. All of them.
And would love to someday, later down the line, meet my own true love. But way
down the line, and not until I have done what I want done. I don’t want to
think about every move because there is someone else involved in my life.”
“So you think having a mate would somehow
ruin your chances of becoming the president of the free world.” Aedan nodded. “Not
very PC of you, young man. When you’re sitting here, as a single man, every
woman in the world is going to want to have a hunk of you.”
“Fine. To a point. But you know as well as I
do that there is only one person for me, and when she comes along, it’ll have
to be after I’m done sitting there.” Aedan knew he sounded like an ass, and if
his mother or father heard him, he’d be in deep shit. But a mate or wife
changed a man. Both his brothers were proof of that.
“You give it some thought and get back to me.
I’ll be here for the next four years or so, and you know how to contact me too
if you have any questions.” He stood up, thinking he was being dismissed. “Come
on down to my real offices. I want you to get a feel for the room. You’ll get
your own chair, of course, but it’ll be yours soon enough.”
After the meeting of sorts was over, Aedan
made his way back to Riordan’s home they had purchased here in DC. It was way
bigger than his at home…servants out the ass, as well as a pool that was not
only heated but covered as well. Going there now, he dove into the water and
swam several laps before he let himself think about what he’d just talked
about.
President. President Aedan Harrison. Smiling,
he loved the sound of that. Not right now. He wasn’t stupid and knew that he
had a great deal to learn about the job before he even began to say the words aloud,
but damn, did he want to do it.
Aedan had always had big plans. Even as a
child he’d worked hard for something if he wanted it, and kept it nice in the
event that one day he’d get bored or tired of it and wish to sell it. He knew
even at ten that money made the world work, and he’d made sure that he learned
how to care for that as well. He was, if he did say so himself, good at
figuring out his own worth and how to make it more. He supposed all of them had
been, but he’d worked harder.
He was rich. Not like Stormy was, who was
worth billions, but he had close to his first billon now. And by the time he
was ready to take the office, he wanted there to be no questions of his taking
money from others to do things for them. Aedan wanted to be a self-made man,
and he was going to do it.
As he made his way up to the room he was
using, he wondered why Harold had seemed fixated on a mate. Aedan didn’t have a
problem with having one, was in fact looking forward to having one at his side.
But he also knew that they could make or break a man that had big plans, and he
was, for even as young as he was, sort of set in his ways. A mate, at this time
in his life, would not be welcome at all.
But would he run for governor? Yes. He would.
It was what he wanted, maybe not in the order he had wanted, but it was the
stepping stone for what he had worked out. Just a little earlier than he’d
wanted. Rolling to his back, he wanted to call his mom and tell her and Dad,
but knew that they’d keep him up all night with questions, and he wanted to
just savor the thought of it for a little while on his own.
He didn’t have the seat yet either, his mind
told him. It was just an open slot that he could run for. Yes, that was true.
There were no guarantees that he’d even win the race, and he’d have to start
all over again if he didn’t.
Closing his eyes, willing his body to shut
down, he smiled one more time and thought of himself as governor. He’d be able
to do so many things with that position. And with the help of his family, he
knew that he’d be good at it too.
~~~
“No.” Nikki hated that word almost as she did
the stupid phrase “these ones.” Christ, what the fuck were they teaching kids
in school these days? “You hear me, bitch. I said I ain’t gonna flip for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to flip, dumbass. All I
asked you to do was to tell me who was selling you the drugs in the first
place. I want to make him a better deal.” The man at her feet, handcuffed to
the fence behind him, snorted at her. “You don’t think I can deal, Rojas? I can,
you know. And I play a mean game of pool too.”
He eyed her. “What the Sam biscuits does pool
have to do with this shit? Are you trying to get me killed here?” She didn’t
even bother answering him. “Ah, that’s cold. Real cold. After I done went and
let you capture me and shit.”
“Yes, you were very generous by letting me
run you down for five city blocks before you ran into a parked car, falling on
your ass. Very helpful, that was. What do you do for an encore?” He only stared
at her. “Never mind. I want their name, Rojas. When you give it to me, I’ll let
you call your momma and let her know you won’t be home for dinner.”
“You know my momma ain’t home. You jacked her
up three weeks ago. And now you’re giving me the same shit. Don’t you have
better things to do?” Nikki pretended to think about it. “You are one cold
bitch. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Yes. My ex-husband. He was just like you. A
little shit that should have known better than to fuck with me.” Looking for
her partner, she wasn’t surprised to see him walking toward her like he’d run a
marathon and come out at the end of the race. The man had to be fifty pounds overweight,
and a heart attack away from leaving this job on a permanent basis. He walked
up to the car that Rojas had run into and leaned heavily against it, heaving
and breathing hard.
“You should have waited on me. You know I
could have been helpful in getting him down.” Nikki said nothing. “My captain
said to tell you that you’re done with this one until he talks to you.”
“Why?” He only shrugged. “Well, it matters
little. I don’t work for your captain. I have my own.”
The cruiser pulled up beside them a few minutes
later. Nikki was undercover and had been for about six months now. But she knew
as well as the cops around her that her cover was blown and she really was
done. As she made her way to her own car, sixteen blocks away, she thought of
the nice long vacation she was going to take as soon as she was debriefed. Her
cell phone ringing made her smile.
“Hello, Grandda. How’s it hanging?” He
laughed at her and she smiled bigger. “They’re pulling me here. I’ll be home in
a few hours. Do you wanna have some pizza and a few beers?”
“I’d rather have a thick steak with all the
trimmings, if you don’t mind.” Sounded good to her. “Good. You can swing by
here, pick this old man up, and we’ll go out in style.”
The car paused as it came around the corner
toward her. She answered her grandda and told him that she’d be there. When he
asked her what was wrong, she wasn’t going to lie to him. He’d been a cop too.
Then an undercover agent with the Feds.
“There’s a black two-door watching me.” She
gave him the plate number. “Can’t see how many are in it. Tinted and up.”
“Take a turn when you can.” She went into the
first store that was open. “Where are you? The place you went in?”
“Mason’s Bakery.” She looked out the window
as she stood in line at the counter. When it was her turn, she ordered
sourdough and two Danish. “I can’t stay here. If there is a problem, I can’t
bring it down on them.”
“Right. When you leave there, make a left
onto James Street. There is a lot of traffic there and you might be able to lose
them in the stream.” She paid for her bread and headed out of the door. The car
was gone and she told him that, but neither of them thought it was done. “James
Street, Nikki. Go there.”
“I’m headed that way now.” As soon as she turned
onto James, she realized it was over. “Grandda. I love you. They’re here.”
“Mother fuck balls.” Even in her fear she
smiled as she lowered her phone, but didn’t close the connection. There were
two cars waiting for her, ten men, all armed with various guns and assault
rifles. The man she’d been chasing for six months was leaning unarmed against
the same black car that had been at the corner.
“You looking for me?” Nikki said nothing as
the man moved toward her. “I hear tell it that you’ve been trying to make some
sort of deal with me. Like I want to deal with a fucking cop like you.”
“I’m not a cop.” He snorted at her, something
that she knew if she lived, she was never going to do again. “I’m an undercover
cop. Special like, to get scum like you off the streets. You willing to turn
yourself in, I’m sure I can accommodate you and your friends.”
“You trying to be funny?” She told him she
was considered very funny by most. “Well, I ain’t most. I don’t think you’re
funny at all.”
“Good to know. You have no sense of humor. What
do you plan to do, Otis, kill an undercover cop while she’s on duty?” He was
handed a gun and Nikki wanted to turn and run. But she knew, as he more than
likely did, she had nowhere to go. “Not very sporting of you to gun me down
with all these men just watching us.”
“They’re going to have their piece of you
too.” Nodding, she looked around at the other men. Any one of them was more
than likely on a list somewhere. Murder more than likely being at the top of
the list. “You’re dead, cop. You just ain’t fell to the ground yet.”